My Hero, Hurricane
by Dezzie Chan
Summary: Just when you think a wrestler's gimmick is fake, it turns out it has some mild truth to it... This is a story based upon true events that transpired at a house show I attended. Please enjoy!


A/N: Yes, this is based upon a true story! I went to my second live show the other day, and I felt it required that I write about my experiences, there. Some dialogue is quirked because I don't memorize my daily social interactions, but everything else is quite true. Please don't sue me, because Vince McMahon owns all the wrestlers... and if Steve or Ray Ray should happen to read this, I don't own them, either. They are their own non-fictional people. As for my sister, she knows not to sue me, because she knows I barely make above minimum wage and am indeed very broke.   
Enjoy!   
  
  
  
  
My Hero, Hurricane   
By Dezzie-Chan   
  
  
  
It all started in the arena parking lot.   
  
That seems a weird place to start the story at, but it's where everything had gone wrong. True, the three-hour drive and the fact my entire leg was asleep was bad. There was also the issue that the Foster's Freeze we had gone to eat at had reminded me of Steven King's 'The Shining' and I probably would have been better off eating out of an ashtray. But that wasn't where the bad luck as pertaining to the wrestling show started... No... That all began in the parking lot.   
  
I strained my eyes to see where the line to get in ended, but it ran around the corner of the building, so I couldn't quite gauge the distance. I looked to my friend Rayleena (who everyone just calls 'Ray Ray') and raised an eyebrow, shrugging slightly.   
  
She shrugged back, and then grinned a little, shaking my arm. "You really think I'll meet him?"   
  
I laughed and crawled out of the car, the other occupants oblivious to our conversation - much more concerned with their cameras, and zoom lenses, and flash setting, and thing-a-ma-bobs, and what-have-you. "He was on the card. I'm pretty sure he's here, Ray Ray."   
  
Rayleena sighed and stood next to me as I unlocked the trunk of my Civic to pull out the signs I had made for us, in hopes we would be the only people dumb enough to tote signs to a house show. The hordes of families and elementary-age children dragging signs twice their size had somewhat soured that hope.   
  
"I know he's here... but do you think I'll meet him?" Rayleena asked again.   
  
At that moment, my other friend Steve made his presence known, letting out a short laugh. "You won't get backstage. There's no way you'll meet Maven."   
  
Yes, that's right. My best friend wanted to meet Maven. I had spent three hours working on a scarily colorful sign to ensure she would... or at least to hopefully ensure she would.   
  
"I know we aren't getting backstage!" I laughed, straightening my Edge sign out a little. "She just wants to meet him - to have him sign her... well, her sign."   
  
"You won't," assured Steve, with a hearty pat to my back.   
  
I just shrugged him off, and looked back to Rayleena. I smirked a little and patted her shoulder as she looked sadly at her blinding Maven sign. "Steve's just jealous that he can't meet Billy and Chuck."   
  
"HEY!" came the call from Steve, already heading towards the line. "I like Billy and Chuck!"   
  
I looked back at Ray Ray with a triumphant grin. "See?"   
  
  
~*~   
  
  
It took at least half an hour to get to the front of the line, and now I think all of us were pumped. Included in the entourage was Rayleena, Steve, my younger sister, Nancy, and myself. Together, we made up the oddest mixture of WWF fans imaginable. Rayleena is a die-hard Rock fan, with an unhealthy obsessiveness to Maven and a hint of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Steve is the most hardcore Triple H fan I had ever seen, although he harbors a scary liking to Billy and Chuck, and Hardcore Holly which I can not explain. Nancy is a Christian/Rhyno hybrid, with bouts of Storm-isms. Me? Well, I've been into Chris Jericho since I started watching, but my main focus is Edge. At that moment, at that house show, I would have said I also thought Hurricane was kind of cool. It wasn't like I thought he was REALLY cool, he certainly wasn't part of my repertoire, or anything. Just cool.   
  
As we neared the front of the line, a Fresno police officer stopped us, and pointed loosely to Steve's camera bag. "Sir, is that a camera?"   
  
"Yes..." Steve replied slowly. "Just a normal camera. It's not a video camera, or anything, if that's wha--"   
  
"Is it a zoom lens?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
My heart sank. They weren't going to let us bring our zoom lens camera inside? How could this be?   
  
"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to take this back to the car."   
  
Steve seemed resigned - in no way did he want to anger this police officer, although I think if I was him, I would have at least asked why. He nodded, and asked me politely for the keys to my car. I handed them to him with a sympathetic look, and just asked that he bring my keys to me when we all meet inside the arena.   
  
  
~*~   
  
  
Inside the arena was worse than the outside. Rust seemed to cover the low ceiling beams, and the (possibly once proud and bright) yellow doors were faded to a sort of sickly mustard color. I gave Ray Ray and my sister a 'bleah' kind of look, as we searched for the Section 13 entrance. Finally, after going through a food court that reeked of body odor and a lobby that was shoulder to shoulder with trailer trash, we found some stairs with "Section 11 - 13 - 15 - 17" plastered above it.   
  
I looked at Nancy with a smile. "Here we go, kid...! Having Christian anxiety, yet?"   
  
She laughed a little, and straightened her glasses. "Kinda."   
  
Rayleena tugged my arm. "Maven! Don't forget Maven!"   
  
"Pfffbbt." I laughed and lightly shoved her off my arm. "I already know you're anxious... you sick freak." Normally I wasn't one for using Rock catch-phrases, as I wasn't his biggest mark to say the least, but there's something contagious about being around a Rocky fan.   
  
I think as soon as we entered our seating area, our hopes hit the floor. It was the most disgusting place I think I had ever seen. Trash lined the floors, people were bustling around and knocking into us even as we stood completely still, and the show was still half-an-hour until starting time. Sticking to the floor more than once, we walked up a short flight of stairs, and to our surprisingly close seats. We must have been at the most forty feet from the ring, to which I gave my sister and friend a large smile. My hunt for tickets hadn't been as bad as I'd thought!   
  
For about the first fifteen minutes, our seats were looking good... until They showed up in front of us. Yes, Them. They were here. The most sickening family I'd ever (and most likely ever will) see. The mother appeared to be completely drunk, slurring and leaning upon one of her two daughters. The first daughter, probably close to my age, was apparently a Rock junky (among a junky of other sorts of things, I'm sure). Her "Just Bring It" T-shirt was tied above her waist-line to show off her belly button and her Brahma Bull tattoo on her lower back. Now, don't get me wrong - I've seen plenty of girls' belly buttons, including my own... but this was a little sick. The cellulite hung over the waist-band of her super-short denim cut-offs, and seemed to dance to an unseen music. The rest of her didn't look chunky - just that great expanse of jiggling white. Her sister was sporting a "Dead-Man Inc" sweatshirt, and I'm sure if not for the quarter-inch thick make-up she was wearing, she was very fetching to the skeleton-of-a-boyfriend she had hanging on her arm. Later on, behind us, came a fairly normal looking family... a short, red-haired mother, a blonde bespectacled daughter and a dad trying to figure out his camera. I wasn't worried about them, then. No, it was not until later that I found out about their many wonderful quirks.   
  
Steve joined us just as the arena lights were dimming, and within seconds everyone was on their feet making a very large racket. At this, I shot Steve a smile. "Good crowd, huh?"   
  
"What?" Steve squinted a bit at me, and I cleared my throat.   
  
"GOOD CROWD, HUH?"   
  
"Oh!" Steve nodded a bit. "Yeah!"   
  
As we watched on, the first match was announced as being for the Cruiser-Weight Title. As Billy Kidman's entrance theme hit, I thought maybe The Rock had accidentally walked out or something. But no... it really was Kidman. I had never heard an arena give an ovation for someone like that at a house show - much less most Raws or Smackdowns I saw! And this was just Kidman! I knew I would be deaf by the main event. There was a similarly loud ovation for Tajiri... and Tajiri's Tarantula hold... and Kidman's hurricanrana... and, well, just about everything from a clothesline to an Irish whip. I didn't know what to make of it.   
  
And then I heard it.   
  
A hideous sound - a banshee in the seats behind me. She wailed a noise which made nails against a chalkboard sound like a heavenly choir... and this banshee was a Tajiri fan.   
  
"GET HIM TAJIRI! Kick his ass!"   
  
I whipped my head around to locate this horrible noise and found it to be... oh my God! The sweet looking mother from the family seated behind us? It couldn't be!   
  
But it was!   
  
"Get up! Get up, dammit! Get him! KIDMAN, YOU SUCK!"   
  
I sank down into my uncomfortable chair, covering my ears a bit. This was going to be a very long show...   
  
  
~*~   
  
  
By the time the main event came along, not even Jericho and his somehow endearing arrogance could cure me of the unhappiness. Little Miss Rocky in front of us was gyrating to his theme and yelling how much he sucked, as Banshee-Woman shouted for Triple H to come out and kick his ass in her normal charming tone. I looked at my sister, and I looked at Rayleena, and then I looked at Steve and decided I would just wait outside. I was going to be physically ill if I stayed in there one more minute.   
  
"Nancy!" I shouted to my sister, who was sitting right next to me. I had to shake her by the shoulder just to get her to look at me. I then gestured to my things, and to the nearby exit, to which I think she got the picture, and much to my surprise, stood up. She was insinuating that she would go with me, and I figured it must have been genetic that we were both annoyed beyond all belief. I gave Rayleena a similar gesture, and once again to my surprise, she stood up, ready to join us. Steve wanted to stay to see his beloved Hunter, so we all got up and left (but not before I blew a kiss to Chris Jericho, of course).   
  
Outside the arena, Ray Ray stopped me and handed me her Maven sign, which he had of course not seen although he looked straight at us. Some other very attractive girl across the arena had brought in a "Maven, I Love You!" sign which had mostly captivated his attention when he had decided to point to people during his entrance.   
  
"Chicky, I'm gonna use the bathroom," she informed me, starting off to the powder room.   
  
I took once glance around the stomach-churning and decayed state of the lobby, and then caught her by the arm, the horror plain on my face. "Are you sure?"   
  
She stuck out her chest like the trooper she was and nodded. I mean, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. But this seemed extremely brave. I didn't actually go inside the bathroom, but I'm sure going outside in the bushes or even in a paper cup would be more sanitary.   
  
Finally, we got out of the arena, and began to walk back to the car. Or, at least, we started to. I wanted to stretch my legs, so I readjusted my jacket and surveyed the area. I could just take a little walk around the arena and back, at least before facing the three-hour (possibly longer with traffic) drive home. Right?   
  
"Hey, Ray Ray, Nancy," I said, calling both of them to my attention. "I'm gonna go walk around the building then come back. Okay?"   
  
Rayleena nodded, but Nancy shrugged and walked up to me. "I'll go with you," she said, catching my attention. "I don't wanna go to the car, yet."   
  
I blinked, and looked to Ray Ray, who shrugged and turned around towards us. "Well, then, I'm going, too."   
  
We started to walk around the building, past some big trucks and misplaced barriers. Styrofoam cups and hamburger wrappers danced in the wind, and the whole place seemed very calm in a trashy sort of way. As we went around the corner, we found ourselves up on a ramp to the back of the arena, and despite a ten-foot-high stone wall, there were breaks in it, blocked by three small iron bars. It reminded me of a prison wall. More out of curiosity than anything else, I looked down through the bars to see at least a fifteen foot drop down to a parking lot... a parking lot that was filled with cars. This caught my attention a little, and I looked through the next gap.   
  
To my surprise, there was someone getting into a little black sports car, with someone else already at the driver's seat. I stopped, Rayleena and Nancy continuing to walk, and tried to take a closer look at the driver, the passenger who was still outside the car and throwing his bags in the back not my main focus. Then, my jaw dropped as DDP leaned out the car window to possibly survey the road in front of him.   
  
"It's DDP...!" I murmured under my breath, a small smile coming to my face. I wasn't quite sure why it was cool seeing DDP in his rental car, but for some reason, anything seemed cool as compared to the show I had just attended.   
  
Another thing I wasn't quite sure of was how the passenger had heard my small murmur, but he looked up, and our gazes met. I felt my heart jump a little, as I most definitely recognized that face... or more accurately, that spiky, green-streaked hair. I guess his Hurri-senses could feel my presence above.   
  
"Hey, it's the Hurricane...!" I laughed.   
  
Hurricane smiled, and waved a little to me. I had to check if he was waving to me, or if someone had snuck up behind me, because it seemed odd that a wrestler would waste his time waving to me. But nope - I was the only person there. So what else could I do? I waved back. That, much to my delight, got me a thumbs-up and... a wink? Did Hurricane just wink at me?   
  
I suppose no one will ever know, because before I could do anything else stupid, Hurricane climbed into the car and out of my vision as the car drove off, veiled by the stone wall. Now, I know Hurricane has some super powers, but I swear DDP took off like a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, and I had no doubt that he could break road blocks in a single slam on the gas.   
  
"Hey! Chicky?"   
  
I looked back to my sister and Rayleena, who were giving me an odd look.   
  
"Is there something fascinating down there, or what?"   
  
'There was something super fascinating down there,' I thought to myself. At that, a small smile found its way onto my face, and suddenly this show didn't seem like it had been so bad to me. It was there, at that moment, that I think it really hit me that there was no way I could not be a Hurricane fan.   
  
I don't care what anyone says about wrestler's over-the-top gimmicks. I don't care if lots of people harp on how it's fake, or that it's just a way of promoting adults to play make-believe. On that impossibly bad day, The Hurricane was about as real as they come.   
  
The Hurricane had saved the day.   
  
  
  
~*~ End. 


End file.
